


strength in numbers

by decrescendo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: After Eleven | Jane Hopper Closes the Gate, Concussions, Gen, Good Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Jim "Chief" Hopper, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 00:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decrescendo/pseuds/decrescendo
Summary: After everything, Hopper finds himself driving back to the cabin with an extra kid.





	strength in numbers

After everything, Hopper found himself driving back to the cabin with an extra kid.

He was supposed to just take Harrington home—“You’re not driving like that,” he’d growled when Steve went to pick up his keys—but when he’d pulled up to the house, it had been completely dark.

“Wait,” he said, just before Steve climbed down from the car. “Is anyone else home?”

There was a moment of hesitation during which he could tell that Steve was trying to decide whether to lie. But then he turned back to Hopper. “No,” he admitted. 

Hopper tried very hard not to roll his eyes. “Then what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m seventeen,” said Steve, with a bravado that couldn’t quite make up for his bloody and swollen face.

Hopper glanced in the rearview mirror, to where El lay curled in the backseat, fast asleep. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to come up with another option. He’d been so looking forward to going home and resting and having everything be more or less _normal_. But he couldn’t do that knowing Harrington was home alone with a concussion and too much pride to call for help if things got worse. “Alright,” he sighed, “get back in the car. You’re coming with me.”

Steve gaped at him. “What? Why?”

“Because someone needs to wake you up every couple hours and make sure you don’t choke on your vomit,” said Hopper. When Steve just kept staring at him he slapped the dashboard, annoyed. “Just close the damn door, kid.”

Silently, Steve pulled the door shut again and re-buckled his seatbelt. 

They drove a few miles without speaking. Steve had leaned his head against the window and his face was tilted away, and Hopper assumed he had fallen asleep. A few minutes later, though, Steve mumbled, “Always assumed if I ended up in police custody it’d be ‘cause of a party or somethin’.” 

Hopper chuckled. “Me too.” He glanced over at him. “How you feeling?”

“Like shit,” said Steve.

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Hopper pulled over a few minutes later. Steve looked up, squinting out the window. “There’s nothing here, Chief. Unless I’m more concussed than I thought.” 

This time Hopper made no effort not to roll his eyes. “It’s about a five minute walk from here, smartass.” Then he looked at him a little more closely, worried suddenly. He hadn’t really thought about the walk when he decided to take Steve here. “Can you handle that?”

“Of course I can,” said Steve.

“Alright,” said Hopper. “Get out, I need to pull your seat forward to get El.”

She was still sleeping soundly and for a moment Hopper just looked at her. She seemed so small like this, so impossibly young, and it was hard to reconcile the image of this little girl with the terrifying superhero who’d telekinetically closed a portal to another dimension just a few hours ago. He couldn’t stop himself from smoothing some of her wild hair, beginning to escape the gel, off her forehead. Then Steve grunted impatiently behind him, and he bent down to lift her into his arms. 

“Isn’t she, like, thirteen?” asked Steve.

“Yes,” said Hopper shortly. He wasn’t interested in elaborating further on the protectiveness he felt toward her. Then he turned and realized Steve was leaning rather heavily against the car. “Kid, are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“I’m _fine,_” said Steve, sounding annoyed. “And it’s not like I can just _not _walk, unless I want to spend the night out here.”

Which was true, so Hopper just shrugged as well as he could with El in his arms and started walking. But after only a few steps he heard Steve stumble, and turned back to see him clutching a tree.

“I was fine earlier,” muttered Steve, looking embarrassed. 

“Yeah, well, adrenaline’s one hell of a drug.” He looked Steve up and down, noting how pale he was even under all the bruising, and how he was shaking more than the temperature justified. He glanced down at El. He really hadn’t wanted to wake her, but he didn’t seem to have much choice. He jostled her gently. “Hey,” he murmured, “can you wake up for me?”

She mumbled something and turned her head into his chest. He felt his heart clench painfully as he looked at her.

“El. Come on, kid, I know you’re tired. We’re almost home. I just need you to walk a little bit for me, can you do that?”

She blinked, slowly waking up, and looked blearily up at him. “Why did we leave?” she mumbled.

“Why did we leave the Byers’? Because you and I both need to rest now. And the kids had to go home too, they can’t all miss school tomorrow. It’ll look too suspicious.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah, kid, Mike too. Now come on, can you walk?”

She nodded and then squirmed slightly, signaling for him to put her down. She swayed a little on her feet and leaned against him, but she didn’t immediately collapse, which was encouraging. 

“Alright,” he called back to Steve. “C’mere, you can lean on me too.”

The walk to the cabin was agonizingly slow, with one of his arms wrapped around Steve’s waist and the other around El’s shoulders, guiding them through the dark woods that only he was really familiar with. When they finally reached it both kids looked ready to collapse, El from exhaustion and Steve, probably, from pain. “Almost there,” he muttered, as much to himself as to either of them, as he maneuvered them up the steps. Just as Joyce had warned him, the door was blown half off its hinges, clinging crookedly to the frame. He shut it behind them as best he could and then tried to put the security risk out of his mind. He and El had violated their secrecy rules enough times already these past few days that it probably didn’t matter much.

He made sure that El was situated in her room—easy enough, as she was asleep again almost as soon as he pulled the covers over her—before going back out to where he’d deposited Steve on the couch. His head was tipped back and his eyes were closed, but as Hopper sat down on the coffee table facing him he opened them and blinked blearily.

“How are you feeling?” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Never better,” he said dryly. 

Hopper sighed, annoyed. “Drop the act, Harrington. This isn’t funny. You have a concussion and if your symptoms change or get worse I _need to know._”

For a moment Steve seemed to struggle with himself. Then he lowered his gaze and muttered, “Little less dizzy. Little more headache.”

Hopper frowned. “Any nausea?”

“No.”

“Alright.” Hopper glanced over at his bed in the corner and considered his own aching muscles, and it took everything in him to be a good person. “You can take the bed tonight, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No way,” said Steve immediately. “I”m not sleeping in your _bed_, Chief, Jesus.”

“You are,” said Hopper, putting on his best chief of police voice, “even if I have to drag your ass over there myself.”

“Really think you could manage that?”

“You were just kidnapped by a bunch of thirteen-year-olds,” Hopper reminded him. “I like my odds.”

Steve had nothing to say to that. He seemed to be trying to glare at Hopper as he stood and made his way over to the bed, but the effect was ruined somewhat when he stumbled after a few steps and Hopper had to catch him and help him the rest of the way.

“Bathroom’s right there if you need it,” said Hopper, gesturing toward it. “If you start to feel worse, wake me up. I’ll be waking you up in a couple hours anyway to make sure your brain’s not turning to mush.”

Steve made a vague gesture that seemed to indicate agreement, and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

—

Hopper had set an alarm to check on Steve in two hours, but that wasn’t what woke him. Instead he was pulled from sleep by the slamming of a door followed by an unpleasant gagging noise. He held up his wrist to squint at his watch and groaned. He’d been asleep less than forty minutes.

But the kid had sustained an impressive concussion while protecting a bunch of thirteen-year-olds he barely knew and probably didn’t deserve to die hunched over the toilet in a near-stranger’s house, so Hopper ignored his heavy eyelids and aching body and pushed himself up off the couch. 

He tapped lightly on the bathroom door with his knuckles. “Hey, kid?” he called quietly, not wanting to wake El. “Can I come in?” He was answered only by a harsh retching that made him wince and he tried the doorknob, relieved to find that it wasn’t locked. “I’m coming in,” he announced before pushing the door open.

Steve was kneeling on the floor, both hands tightly clutching the seat of the toilet. He looked damp all over with sweat and as Hopper watched, he pitched forward and vomited again.

“Aw, kid,” he sighed, shutting the door behind him and sitting down on the edge of the bath. 

Steve spit into the toilet and turned his head to look up at him. “Hey, Chief,” he mumbled. “S’ry t’wake you.”

“Don’t worry about that. Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Yeah,” said Steve, and seemed about to elaborate, but then he squeezed his eyes shut and made a whimpering noise that Hopper was sure would have been humiliating under better circumstances before ducking lower over the toilet and gagging.

Hopper sighed and leaned forward to place a hand on Steve’s back. He was radiating heat. “Easy, kid.” He started rubbing the hand on Steve’s back in slow circles, as much to make himself feel useful as anything.

When it was finally done he helped Steve lean back against the wall before flushing the toilet and dampening a washcloth. Steve watched him through half-lidded eyes. “‘M I dying?”

Hopper smiled humorlessly as he pressed the washcloth to Steve’s face. “That depends. Can you tell me what town we’re in?”

It took Steve a long moment to answer, but eventually he mumbled, “‘Awkins In’ana.”

“That’s right.” Hopper tossed the washcloth into the tub behind him. That could be tomorrow’s problem. “No, you’re not dying. Some nausea is normal with a concussion. No need to worry unless it doesn’t get better. You wanna get back to bed?”

Steve started to nod, but stopped quickly with a wince.

“Alright.” He reached down to help Steve up, and he could tell that even with as slow and careful as he was being, it was taking everything in Steve’s power not to cry out in pain.

He deposited him as gently as possible back on the bed. Steve let out a moan of relief that Hopper was pretty sure was involuntary and curled in on himself, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

“Night, kid,” sighed Hopper. “See you in two hours.”

—

It was late the next afternoon before Hopper felt comfortable taking Steve home.

He turned to Steve before letting him out of the car. “You call if you need anything,” he said sternly. 

“Yeah, I will,” said Steve. “Thanks, Chief.”

“_Anything,_” Hopper repeated. “You should be out of the danger zone now, but if anything changes—”

“Yeah, yeah, call you, I got it. Can I go now?”

Hopper rolled his eyes and unlocked the door. “Yeah, you can go.”

He stayed parked out front until Steve had gone into the house, and then for a minutes after that. Eventually he sighed heavily and put the car in drive. His other kid was waiting for him at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Channel 3 song of the same name.


End file.
